Soon he spoke again, but now in a changed voice from which the note of exaltation had passed away: "But it is of little use to brood over the lost glories of the past.

Our concern is with that which is and that which may--nay, shall be.

Who is this Franklin Marmion, this wise man of the infidels?
Who is he, and who was he--since, by the changeless law of life and death, each man and woman is a deathless soul which passes into the shadows only to return re-garbed in the flesh to live and work through the interlocked cycles of Eternal Destiny?
Was he--ah Gods! was _he_ once Ma-Rim[=o]n, whose footsteps in the days that are dead approached so nearly to the threshold of the Perfect Knowledge, while mine, doubtless for the sin of my longing for mere earthly power and greatness, were caught and held back in a web of my own weaving?
And, if so, has he attained while I have lost?
"What if that strange tale which Pent-Ah and Neb-Anat told me of their visit to his house--told, as I thought, to hide their failure under a veil of lies--was true?
If so, then he has passed the threshold and taken a place only a little lower than the seats of the gods, a place that I may not approach, barred by the penalty of my accursed folly and pride! Ah well, be it so or be it not, are not the fates of all men in the hands of the High Gods who see all things?
We see but a little, and that little, with their help, we must do according to the faith and the hope that is in us." At this moment there came a knock at the door.

It opened at his bidding, and a dirty-faced, ragged-frocked little girl shuffled into the room holding out a letter in her hard, grimy, claw-like hand.
"'Ere's somethin' as has just come for you, Mister Phadrig.

Muvver told me ter bring it up, and wot'll yer want for supper, and will yer give me the money ?" she said in a piping monotone, still holding out her hand after he had taken the letter.